has he? An ugly brick house in Fortieth Street? Don't tell me
that; I refuse to recognise that as an ideal."

"I don't care anything about his house," said Isabel.

"That's very crude of you. When you've lived as long as I you'll see
that every human being has his shell and that you must take the shell
into account. By the shell I mean the whole envelope of circumstances.
There's no such thing as an isolated man or woman; we're each of us
made up of some cluster of appurtenances. What shall we call our 'self'?
Where does it begin? where does it end? It overflows into everything
that belongs to us--and then it flows back again. I know a large part
of myself is in the clothes I choose to wear. I've a great respect for
THINGS! One's self--for other people--is one's expression of one's self;
and one's house, one's furniture, one's garments, the books one reads,
the company one keeps--these things are all expressive."

This was very metaphysical; not more so, however, than several
observations Madame Merle had already made. Isabel was fond of
metaphysics, but was unable to accompany her friend into this bold
analysis of the human personality. "I don't agree with you. I think just
the other way. I don't know whether I succeed in expressing myself, but
I know that nothing else expresses me. Nothing that belongs to me is any
measure of me; everything's on the contrary a limit, a barrier, and
a perfectly arbitrary one. Certainly the clothes which, as you say, I
choose to wear, don't express me; and heaven forbid they should!"

"You dress very well," Madame Merle lightly interposed.

"Possibly; but I don't care to be judged by that. My clothes may express
the dressmaker, but they don't express me. To begin with it's not my own
choice that I wear them; they're imposed upon me by society."

"Should you prefer to go without them?" Madame Merle enquired in a tone
which virtually terminated the discussion.

I am bound to confess, though it may cast some discredit on the sketch I
have given of the youthful loyalty practised by our heroine toward this
accomplished woman, that Isabel had said nothing whatever to her about
Lord Warburton and had been equally reticent on the subject of Caspar
Goodwood. She had not, however, concealed the fact that she had had
opportunities of marrying and had even let her friend know of how
advantageous a kind they had been. Lord Warburton had left Lockleigh
and was gone to Scotland, taking his sist